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10 Tips to Grow Your Medical Practice in 2022

Starting your own practice can be demanding in terms of time and risks involved. This entrepreneurial debut is especially hard on healthcare personnel like doctors because you haven’t been taught how to run a business and do not receive any training in business management while in school. You are taught medicine and how to tackle issues in medicine, but never business. On top of that, the world’s economy is suffering due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Both of these can really hurt your medical practice and its revenue.

Despite this, 2022 has shown promise that it might be different and you will finally get a chance to grow your medical practice with the tips mentioned below. For your medical practice to grow this year, you have to focus on patient satisfaction and also the satisfaction of your staff. It is not just about the patients, as most doctors think.

Table of Contents

Hire Great Staff with the right training

The first and foremost thing that you need to do for the success of your practice is to hire staff that is well-trained in their position. You can only do so much and with you focusing on patient care in the office, you need staff that can work in a team and run the practice outside of your office. They should be able to build a rapport with new patients and provide a welcoming environment for them. Moreover, this rapport makes it easier for the patient to share their experience with the staff, and what could have been done to make it better.

Know what your staff needs

While many practices out there focus on improving patient satisfaction, they often forget about the staff. You should care for both if you want to be successful. Meeting your staff’s needs, and backing them up in difficult situations is how you ensure that you have happy and loyal employees working with you, for the betterment of your service. Know what your staff wants, and always hire enough staff members so no one is overworked to the point of exhaustion. Exhausted employees are not a good look for your practice, especially when it affects their ability to function in front of patients.

Work on building a unique brand

You have to make your service stand out and you can do this by building a unique brand for yourself. What this means is that you need to emphasize the focus of your practice, whether it is cosmetic surgery, pediatrics, women’s health, or any other specialty. Your brand should be unique and obvious to the patients. This helps your brand stand out when someone is looking for those services, otherwise, your practice gets pushed below with all non-specific brands.

Create a warm environment for the staff

Your staff is working on the same goal as you, which is to grow your medical practice. It is absolutely important that you create an environment in which they feel comfortable and flourish. Because that is what will help your practice flourish. Communicate with your employees, and always welcome new ideas from them for what can be done differently. Listen to their ideas and implement them, when possible.

Train your staff to handle sensitive situations

Appropriate training for your staff is crucial for better management of conflicts that are bound to arise in a medical practice. While it helps to hire staff that has some experience with it, it is important that you have your staff participate in sensitivity training. This can help them handle upset patients or angry patients with care.

Know what your patients want

Have someone from your staff talk to the patient after their visit with you, while they are waiting to leave. Ask the patients what could have made their visit better or what was something they really liked, so that you can highlight those features and improve the rest.

Send out Patient satisfaction surveys

After their visit, it is recommended that you send patient satisfaction surveys to the patients either via mail, email, or text, depending on the patient’s preferences. This makes the patients feel heard and it helps you focus on improving areas of low patient satisfaction.

Provide educations sources for your patients

While explaining to the patient the results of the physical examination and laboratory testing, it is preferred that you do not use medical jargon. Explain everything in easy words so that the patient understands what is happening. This small step can increase patient satisfaction and grow your medical practice significantly.

After the visit, provide your patients with educational material like pamphlets or links to your social media platforms where you are explaining their condition. This helps the patient follow up on their condition and understand it further once they get home. Due to the presence of all the information at the tip of their fingertips, they are going to understand their situation better and stick to the treatment regimen. All of this increases patient satisfaction rate and they are now more likely to share your practice with loved ones with similar problems.

Use online services

Make it easier for patients to book an appointment online or pay online. These online services provide accessibility and comfort that many people nowadays look for, making your medical practice stand out positively. More people are likely to book an appointment with you because of this.

Build an online presence

You should have a clear, updated website and social media accounts for your medical practice that provides your working hours, the services you provide, and patient testimonials. You should respond to comments and questions in a timely manner on these platforms because this increases your practice’s appeal to patients, especially to millennials. Moreover, you should try to resolve negative comments in a calm manner, rather than just deleting them off your feed. This shows that you care about all feedback, and try to resolve issues rather than ignoring them.